By the end of the summer school, though, I began to see the ways in which social ontology has failed to sufficiently engage with other philosophical traditions, the ways in which it could benefit from more explicit cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons, and the ways in which social ontology as a field of research is itself a social construct worth examining more carefully.
Welcome to the next edition of ISOS News, a blog series where we invite members to share their experiences with various ISOS initiatives. This month, I invited myself to talk about yet another thing that was funded through ISOS's small grants program—or two things, depending on how you individuate things.
The application window for 2027 closes December 1, less than a month away! Please email your budget template and proposal submission form to smallgrantsisos@gmail.com.
For a few years now, I have been trying to make social ontology a thing in China. I've taught several advanced seminars. I've organized a workshop or two. I've even found ways to smuggle different parts of social ontology into my more traditional courses in metaphysics and the philosophy of language. But I wanted to do more. So in the summer of 2024 I pitched to my dean the idea of hosting a social ontology summer school. To my surprise, he agreed!
I had never organized a summer school before, so I asked Gina Lebkuecher (at the time a postdoctoral research fellow at Wuhan University, and now an assistant lecturer at the University of Hong Kong) if she wanted to help. Six months, one ISOS grant, and hundreds of emails later, Gina and I welcomed to Wuhan four other philosophers and sixteen students from all across China.
Over the course of the next two days, each philosopher led a 90-minute interactive session on some topic connected to their research interests. Except for me, I guess. Because my session was the first session and because most students in the room had never even seen the word 'social ontology' before seeing our Call for Applications, it was my job to introduce the field at a more general level. But the other sessions were great. Gina introduced students to the concept of looping effects and talked about the historical development of the concept of race in Western society. Hwa Yeong Wang (Duke Kunshan University) talked about Im Yunjidang and Gang Jeongildang, two women from the late Joseon dynasty who wrote extensively on Confucianism, and used them as models to discuss the social construction of who gets to count as a “philosopher”. Shuchen Xiang (Xidian University) talked about a distinctively Chinese version of cosmopolitanism and the ways in which its approach to social identity differs from historically Western approaches. Michael Longenecker (Zhongnan University of Economics and Law) introduced students to the metaphysics of personal identity and suggested to them how such issues may depend on conventions. Finally, Rachel Sterken (University of Hong Kong) presented some empirical research on generics and showed the ways in which they may (or may not) contribute to harmful social stereotypes. In addition to all that, we had a session where students presented their own research. And the whole event ended with a roundtable discussion where all the philosophers answered questions from the students (and me).
The summer school was much more successful than I had ever imagined it could have been back in 2024. But there are two things that I am especially proud of.
First, student interest far exceeded our expectations. When we originally budgeted for 12 students, I was secretly hoping for 20 or so applications. But we ended up receiving over 100, dozens of them highly qualified. While we were able to expand the invitation list to 16 students, we had to turn down many very compelling applications. That weighs on my conscience. Still, I am proud that we were able to create a cohort that was diverse with respect to topics of interest, academic levels (BA, MA, PhD), university prestige, and previous educational opportunities specifically with respect to social ontology. (By the way, because we didn’t expect such a high level of interest, we were unprepared for the sheer amount of work it would create. Gina deserves an enormous amount of credit for managing the email account that we used to correspond with all of those students. Truly heroic levels of time and effort.)
Second, the summer school challenged my idea of what social ontology is and what it could be. You may have noticed that the speakers and topics I mentioned three paragraphs ago don’t fit neatly into the paradigm of social ontology—at least, if we were to base our paradigm on recent issues of the Journal of Social Ontology and ISOS conference programs. Initially, this was by necessity. Social ontology is not popular in China, and even some of the speakers would not have considered themselves to be working in social ontology. By the end of the summer school, though, I began to see the ways in which social ontology has failed to sufficiently engage with other philosophical traditions, the ways in which it could benefit from more explicit cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparisons, and the ways in which social ontology as a field of research is itself a social construct worth examining more carefully.
Thankfully, things went well enough that I was able to secure funding to host another social ontology summer school this year. In fact, I was able to extend the event to 3 days and 30 students. Some familiar faces returned: Gina and myself, as well as Michael, Hwa Yeong, and Rachel. We were also joined by Kevin Turner (Hong Kong Baptist University), Ben Cross (Wuhan University), and Ryan Simonelli (who is about to be an assistant professor at Zhejiang University). This time around, we experimented with a slightly different format. Each morning featured three somewhat shorter lectures, and the afternoon was dedicated to “debriefs” where students that I divided into small groups discussed the morning’s content and interacted with the presenters in a more organic fashion. (These small groups persisted through the entire summer school, giving students an opportunity to get to know each other more deeply.) The first two days ended with student presentations. And the last day ended with another roundtable—except this time the questions that I asked were randomly drawn from a box of questions filled in advance during the debrief sessions.
Like I said, I've never run a summer school before. So if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. Feel free to send me an email at: peter.w.finocchiaro@gmail.com. And if you happen to be reading this in China and didn't already know about the summer school, please reach out to me. I'd love to find a way to get you involved!
Peter Finocchiaro is a philosopher at Wuhan University. His research focuses on the metaphysics of social categories, especially sexual orientation. He is also deeply concerned about the role of English as the lingua franca of academic philosophy and encourages you to read the manifesto for the Barcelona Principles for a Globally Inclusive Philosophy. He has been a member of the ISOS Steering Committee since 2024.
"International Social Ontology Society" is registered as a non-profit organization in Austria.
